


I care about you. Deal with that.

by fineandwittie



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e14 T. Earl King #94, F/M, I'm sorry. i had to, Lizzington - Freeform, episode fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 13:43:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3490454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I literally couldn't contain my lizzington feels and so I had to write something. It was self-preservation. It's a bit OOC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I care about you. Deal with that.

Lizzie leans her forehead against the cool glass of the car window. She’d told him she cared and yet he still couldn’t accept…couldn’t…

She tries to stop the tears, to choke back the sob that was threatening to force its way out of her mouth.

There is silence in the car for several minutes. They exit the estate and are several miles down the road before she realizes that Dembe is driving. She has no idea where they’re going and no contact with anyone from the Post Office. 

She thinks about this for a moment. 

She honestly does not care. He could take her wherever he liked. She exhales a very soft, quiet breath and manages to keep it from turning harsh.

“Lizzie…”

She doesn’t turn to him. Doesn’t move at all.

“Lizzie, you are both right and wrong about me. About why I cannot allow you ever to repeat what you did tonight.”

She blinks and turns to him. The tears haven’t stopped, but she doesn’t speak or move to brush them away.

“I am damaged. So very damaged. And being vulnerable is never of benefit, in my line of work. But those two facts have nothing to do with it. With you. It was not being saved. It was not that someone would risk their life for mine. It was not that someone helped me. It was you.”

She stares. “What?”

His lips quirks up in that sad little smile, an expression of pure melancholy, that he gets sometimes around her. “Lizzie, you are worth…Your life is worth so much more than mine. You are worth so much more. To throw your life away on me? To waste it, something so infinitely precious, on me? I can’t let you do that.”

“Red…” She can’t breathe. He’s so wrong. So completely wrong and she can’t breathe.

“Lizzie, you told me that I don’t care about you. You said this was all a ploy. Some elaborate plan to acquire the fulcrum. You are so very wrong. It may have started out that way. A path to revenge and a way to get the fulcrum. But very quickly, you changed that. You…Lizzie, I have never in my life loved someone the way I love you. You are…everything. Your regard…even as minimal as it has always seemed to be, is incredibly precious to me. You care about me? I have never received a greater gift. But please, do not ever risk your life for mine. You were right earlier tonight. I am not worth it.”

She’s across the car before she even registers moving. Her hands are grasping his face, forcing him to look up at her as she kneels on the seat.

“Shut up! Stop saying that. Red, you…god…” She pauses. Inhales and thinks. She’s a profiler. She’s got the training to work around this. So… “Red, you love me. Which means that you want me to be happy?” He nods. “If you died…if I had to walk away and let you die? It wouldn't merely destroy my future happiness. It would destroy me. On that prison site, after the explosion? I thought you were dead. I was going… You once told me that a man who’s willing to burn the world down to protect the one person who they care about is a man you understand. Red…I understand him too. I was completely prepared to shoot every single person in that building in order to get you out of it alive. I killed a man for you tonight and I honestly do not give a damn. Because that is a small price to pay to get you back. To save you. He was going to shoot you. He had a gun to your head and he was going to take you away from me. And I—“

She breaks off, crying to hard to continue. He pulls her down into a loose embrace and she clings to him.

He runs his hands over her hair and murmurs in her ear. After several long moments, she pulls back just a little to see his face.

They examine one another. The mood in the care changed slowly. Her eyes, as usual, drift to his mouth. His lips quirk and her gaze snaps back up to his eyes. He’s smiling at her.

“Lizzie, are you perhaps hard of hearing?”

She frowns at the non-sequitur, but shakes her head.

“It is merely that I have noticed that, more often than not, you stare at my mouth when I talk.”

She flushes. His voice, which had been hoarse for several days (she thinks aimlessly that maybe he is fighting off a cold, something that is oddly endearing), goes husky, rough with something dark and sensuous. Unconsciously glancing towards his lips again, she flushes darker. 

“Ah. Could I take the lovely rose your cheeks to indicate that this is either involuntary or that you wish to kiss me?

She licks her own lips. She can’t help it. She does want to kiss him, desperately. 

She wants him to kiss her.

She pauses for a moment before lighting on an idea. She leans forward, stopping before his eyes go out of focus. On a breathy exhale that’s filled with as much desire as she can infuse, she says, “Raymond.”

He surges forward, reaching up to bury his hands in her hair and claiming her mouth. She thinks it may have been a somewhat involuntary reaction to her using his name for the first time, but then she doesn’t think anything much at all.

In the front seat, Dembe grins in relief, almost murmurs ‘Finally,’ and flips the rearview mirror up to give them at least a touch more privacy. He is not at all certain that Agent Keen will appreciate having shown him quite that much skin when she finally realizes where she is again.


End file.
